Pender honors students in Migrant Education Program

Left to right, Graduation seniors Iselma Cruz, 17, Carmina Lopez, 19, and Ricia Stremfel, 18, gather before a ceremony recognizing students from migrant families at Cape Fear Elementary School Thursday, May 9, 2013. Every year Pender County Schools holds an awards night to honor students in migrant worker families.

Published: Sunday, May 12, 2013 at 8:40 p.m.

Last Modified: Sunday, May 12, 2013 at 8:40 p.m.

Left to right, Graduation seniors Iselma Cruz, 17, Carmina Lopez, 19, and Ricia Stremfel, 18, gather before a ceremony recognizing students from migrant families at Cape Fear Elementary School Thursday, May 9, 2013. Every year Pender County Schools holds an awards night to honor students in migrant worker families.

Photo by Mike Spencer

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They'd come to the school for a typical academic awards night, celebrating students who were graduating from high school, winning a storytelling competition or showing the most enthusiasm about reading.

As they waited for the ceremony to begin, mothers corralled babies, fathers fiddled with cameras and children giggled with their seatmates.

But instead of calling out an English "Congratulations!" to the winners, the families spoke in Spanish: "Felicidades!"

The event was Pender County Schools' Migrant Awards Night, a small part of the district's Migrant Education Program, which supports about 180 students whose families move in and out of Pender County to harvest crops. Students can switch schools as often as every three months, making it hard to keep up with classwork or, in many cases, learn to speak a new language. So Pender County, through a federally funded program that's been in place since 1966, helps them: providing school supplies, finding tutors and setting up events throughout the year that let families come together to celebrate student success.

Students in the Migrant Education Program can get extra tutoring on their homework or have a translator work with them in class, said Beatriz Hernandez, a junior at Trask High School. Beatriz is no longer a migrant student, she said – her family got to Pender County when she was in third grade and stayed here – but before then, it was a constant state of change.

"We would move every three months or so," said Beatriz, who has two siblings who also attend Pender County Schools.

That's still the case for sisters Ana and Jessica Sanchez, both students at Malpass Corner Elementary School. Fifth-grader Jessica starts counting on her fingers when asked how many schools she's attended, saying that her family has moved in and out of Pender County throughout her life. But an endlessly smiley Jessica doesn't seem to mind. She loves the events that the migrant program sets up.

"We get to visit people," she said.

Hispanic students whose families aren't migrant have also been affected by the program. Trask High seniors Iselma Cruz and Carmina Lopez, both originally from Oaxaca, Mexico, will help new students acclimate to an unfamiliar school setting. Carmina has been working with one boy who doesn't speak any English or Spanish, she said – only a dialect common to Oaxaca.

Connections like that represent why Carmina, who's graduating in just a few weeks, loves her school, she said.

"We are really united," she said. "We know each other and can really talk to each other" – even if it's in another language.